There's No Scarlet and Gold In The Rainbow
by miss-lily-lupin
Summary: The Marauder's Map is finally complete! Now it's time for a little testing...


Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was full of many surprises as one may think. Just from the name, you can tell that it is no ordinary school, but their peers would only see the students that attend this school as ordinary students. And because of this, what made you weird was the fact that you didn't know of this other world, this world of magic and mystery.  
  
It was this that brought all of these students together, each having their own story to tell. But it is only four boys that we will focus on today, one boy who was alone and was angry at the world, another boy who was the outcast of the family and didn't see to their ways, another boy who was born a leader and with a heart as brave as a lion, and the last boy who was small and a bit cowardly. It was these four boys that would change not only Hogwarts forever, but their lives as well.  
  
"Sirius, will you shut up!" Remus asked for the fifth time in a hiss.  
  
Sirius rolled his eyes upward and said in a hurt voice, "Why! Moony! It's as if you don't want to hear me talk! Or worse! I'm getting on your nerves!"  
  
"Yes to both." Remus said steeling a glance down the aisle they were hiding in. "You'll get us caught if you don't shut it."  
  
"You worry too much, Remus!" Sirius said with a huff, but he fell quiet. Remus smiled at him and tapped his wand on the blank piece of parchment. Nothing happened. "Are you sure that thing isn't faulty?"  
  
"You don't even know what faulty means." Remus muttered as he tapped the parchment again, this time saying, "Show me."  
  
"I do know that it means, thank you very much! It means. erm-Hey! Moony! The parchment is doing something!"  
  
Both boys turned their heads toward the parchment where a very neat, very familiar handwriting appeared.  
  
"Mr. Moony would like to say that he is completely appalled that you don't know how to unlock this map!"  
  
Remus and Sirius looked at each other grinning. When they returned their gaze back to the parchment, a new unfamiliar messy message appeared under that one.  
  
"Mr. Padfoot must say that Remus Lupin is no longer a genius anymore if he can't even figure out how to open this map, and that Mr. Padfoot has no idea what appalled means!"  
  
Remus stifled a laugh and Sirius huffed, but still, the parchment did not stop.  
  
"Mr. Prongs would like to tell Mr. Padfoot what appalled means but thinks that's Mr. Moony's job and would like to tell Remus Lupin that he better stop being a nutter and open the goddamn map!"  
  
Sirius, who had stopped huffing, began to start laughing out loud and Remus had to kick him in his shins to get him to quiet down. When they turned back to the map, the final messaged had been burned there.  
  
"Mr. Wormtail would just like to say that he has no idea what appalled means either and would like to request that Mr. Moony stop using big words that he does not know and for Remus Lupin to shut up Mr. Padfoot and show that he really is a genius and open the map!"  
  
"See," Remus said with a grin glancing at Sirius, "Even Wormtail knows I'm genius."  
  
"You know, Remus? You use to be so modest! Now you flaunt it wherever you go!" Sirius said in an aggravated voice, but his grin threw the mood off.  
  
"Flaunt? Another word you don't know the meaning to!" Remus laughed as he began to walk out of the library, stuffing the parchment into his pocket without clearing it.  
  
"I can say big words and know the meanings to them, thank you very much, Mr. Know-It-All! That's what it should say instead of Mr. Moony! Mr. Know- It-All!" Remus only rolled his eyes in response and led the way to the Gryffindor Tower. "I mean, c'mon, Moony! It so fits you!" Sirius continued as they walked, "You're a prefect, you have the highest grades in fifth year, and you have the greatest ideas for pranks! Like this latest invention! It's bloody brilliant! It's-what is it again?"  
  
"It's a map, Padfoot. It shows every corridor and classroom in Hogwarts and every secret passage around the grounds. Not to mention everyone in it as well." Remus explained in his 'listen to me or die' voice. It always got people's attention, and he only used it when he didn't feel like repeating himself.  
  
"See! It shows where everybody is! Filch'll never catch us again! See, you are a bloody genius!" Sirius praised.  
  
"I didn't like the thought of being caught, Padfoot. The last time was our worst. We didn't even get close enough near Mrs. Norris before we were caught, even with James' Invisibility Cloak!"  
  
Sirius nodded absently at Remus. It had been a horrible disaster, but Filch still didn't know about the Cloak. Slow fool.  
  
It wasn't until all four boys were gathered in the Boys' Dorm were they able to gloat about their success in the library. James, as they had anticipated, was impressed and giddy. And Peter, who always did as James, was impressed and giddy. So, all in all, they were happy with their work just as much as they were.  
  
"Now, how do you unlock it?" James asked as he read what his map-self had said for the billionth time.  
  
"Easy, let me show you." Remus said as he took the map into his hands. He tapped his wand on the surface of the parchment and said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." The parchment shivered for a minute before a map of the castle appeared and they were able to see where everyone was.  
  
James' eyes glowed with mischief, "Who's going to be our first victim with this?" He looked at the others for advice.  
  
"Snape."  
  
"Norris."  
  
"Evans."  
  
"Evans!?" Remus asked as he turned to look at Sirius giving him a weird look. "Why Lily?"  
  
"Ooh! So now Mr. Prefect is on a first name basis with her, are we?" Sirius taunted.  
  
"She's a Prefect, as well, Padfoot. I work with her; of course we're on a first name basis. And she's not so bad once you get to know her!" Remus said defending the girl.  
  
Sirius huffed, "Fine, not Evans. Snape then."  
  
"I vote for Norris as well." James said looking at Remus who nodded in agreement. After all, it had been his vote. "We need to let Filch know we aren't out of business yet!"  
  
"I vote for Norris too!" Peter squeaked suddenly. Like before, he always does what James does.  
  
Sirius sighed, apparently quite irritated now, "Norris then! Jeesh!"  
  
The other three boys snickered as they huddled around the map. They watched the map for a minute following the cat's movements who seemed to following Filch's movements until Remus broke the silence.  
  
"Lets go at 1 o'clock. Her and Filch are never together at that time of night. Other than that, they're inseparable." The others agreed quickly.  
  
For the rest of the night, they planned, plotted, and planned some more. By the time they headed up to bed to 'sleep' they had come down with three back-up plans, four escapes, and five meet-up places if they were to separate.  
  
They all lied in bed, pretending to sleep, waiting for James' wireless to tell them it was time for action. Five minutes after they had lied down, soft snores began to emerge from Peter's bed. That was one of his problems; he could never pretend to sleep. Remus had tried to explain the purpose of 'pretending to sleep' to him, but he had merely replied, "I do pretend to sleep! It's just, when I pretend to sleep, I have to pretend to snore, too, right? How am I going to snore if I don't go to sleep for real so that it sounds real! I'm not a good actor! You know that, Remus!"  
  
Remus hadn't even bothered to try to explain to him that none of them filled the air with fake snores, he had only nodded in his strange way and turned around and left. They decided it was probably best to just leave him alone and wake him up when it was time.  
  
Remus was nearly falling asleep himself when he heard James' wireless begin to scream, "WAKE UP YOU UNTIDY POTTER YOU! WAKE UP!"  
  
James had tried to charm it to say something different for ages now, but it never worked. James often commented on how it sounded so much like his mother. Sirius just laughed and prayed to Merlin that he never met James' mother if she was really like that. Sirius ended up with a bruise on the side for a good three weeks.  
  
The three taller Marauders got up pretty quickly, and the fourth one rolled out of bed with a 'thump'. Once they were all situated and had all squeezed under the cloak (it was starting to become quite a squeeze with four fully- grown fifteen year old boys), Remus pulled out his wand and tapped it on the Parchment, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."  
  
They quickly spotted the dot labeled 'Mrs. Norris' and started out of the Gryffindor Tower toward her. The minute they were in visual distance, Mrs. Norris had all ready smelled them. She paused, stuck her wet nose up in the air, and sniffed. Turning toward them, she twitched her ear and began to walk toward them.  
  
The four Marauders exchanged evil grins as Mrs. Norris began to sniff the cloak. Everything was going as planned.  
  
No one knew that it had been the Marauders that had turned Mrs. Norris the colors of the rainbow. Many had their suspicions, of course, but the Marauders looked so surprised that morning that they had their doubts. Then again, it could have been Remus' Fooling Charm that he was using to make them look shocked as they struggled to keep a straight face, but no one knew of that of course.  
  
Filch hadn't been much to please with the decorations of his cat and had gone straight to the Gryffindor Table, shouting at them saying that there was definitely more scarlet and gold on his cat than any other color.  
  
No one had even thought about the fact that there is no scarlet and gold in the rainbow. 


End file.
